After 9/11 then U.S president George W Bush declared ”the war against terrorism”. He stated that al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were “unlawful combatants”. The significance of this term placed all persons considered as “unlawful combatants” outside the scope and protection of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which is the law that applies in armed conflicts. This thesis is a comparison between the rhetoric of former U.S president George W Bush and his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and that of the former colonial powers. It is a reading of how both the “savages” of colonial rhetoric and the “unlawful combatants” of latter day rhetoric have been excluded from the laws of war. In this thesis I want to know if, and if so how the... (More)

After 9/11 then U.S president George W Bush declared ”the war against terrorism”. He stated that al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were “unlawful combatants”. The significance of this term placed all persons considered as “unlawful combatants” outside the scope and protection of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which is the law that applies in armed conflicts. This thesis is a comparison between the rhetoric of former U.S president George W Bush and his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and that of the former colonial powers. It is a reading of how both the “savages” of colonial rhetoric and the “unlawful combatants” of latter day rhetoric have been excluded from the laws of war. In this thesis I want to know if, and if so how the rhetoric concerning “unlawful combatant” pursued by the two proponents of “the war against terrorism” can be seen as a continuation of colonial practices as found in the rhetoric concerning the application of IHL in colonial wars between “civilized nations” and “savages”. My work is inspired by Frédéric Mégret´s text “From ‘savages’ to ‘unlawful combatants’: a postcolonial look at the international humanitarian law´s ‘other’”. My thesis contains a brief history of IHL and the term “unlawful combatant”, as well as statements delivered by George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld regarding “unlawful combatants”.
My comparison has its starting point in postcolonial theory. Among the theorists I use are Edward W Said, Gayatri Spivak and Anne Orford. My conclusion is that the rhetoric of Bush and Rumsfeld can be seen as a continuation of colonial practices, indeed as a continuation of an exclusion of, in the words of Spivak “the other”, an exclusion which has been imbedded in IHL from its very beginning as a legal discipline. This conclusion corresponds with and can be seen as an elaboration of, the findings Mégret does in his article. (Less)

@misc{1759768,
abstract = {After 9/11 then U.S president George W Bush declared ”the war against terrorism”. He stated that al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were “unlawful combatants”. The significance of this term placed all persons considered as “unlawful combatants” outside the scope and protection of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which is the law that applies in armed conflicts. This thesis is a comparison between the rhetoric of former U.S president George W Bush and his Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and that of the former colonial powers. It is a reading of how both the “savages” of colonial rhetoric and the “unlawful combatants” of latter day rhetoric have been excluded from the laws of war. In this thesis I want to know if, and if so how the rhetoric concerning “unlawful combatant” pursued by the two proponents of “the war against terrorism” can be seen as a continuation of colonial practices as found in the rhetoric concerning the application of IHL in colonial wars between “civilized nations” and “savages”. My work is inspired by Frédéric Mégret´s text “From ‘savages’ to ‘unlawful combatants’: a postcolonial look at the international humanitarian law´s ‘other’”. My thesis contains a brief history of IHL and the term “unlawful combatant”, as well as statements delivered by George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld regarding “unlawful combatants”.
My comparison has its starting point in postcolonial theory. Among the theorists I use are Edward W Said, Gayatri Spivak and Anne Orford. My conclusion is that the rhetoric of Bush and Rumsfeld can be seen as a continuation of colonial practices, indeed as a continuation of an exclusion of, in the words of Spivak “the other”, an exclusion which has been imbedded in IHL from its very beginning as a legal discipline. This conclusion corresponds with and can be seen as an elaboration of, the findings Mégret does in his article.},
author = {Karlsson, Björn},
keyword = {George W Bush,Donald Rumsfeld,IHL,illegala kombattanter,postkolonialism,ociviliserade vildar},
language = {swe},
note = {Student Paper},
title = {"Illegala kombattanter" en postkolonial studie av uteslutandet av POW-status för Guantánamofångarna},
year = {2011},
}